The following relates generally to wireless communications, and more specifically to mobile device communications with multiple access points. Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of access points (e.g., cellular network base stations or wireless local area network (WLAN) access points), each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple mobile devices. Access points may communicate with mobile devices on downstream and upstream links (e.g., downlinks and uplinks). Each access point may have a range, which range may be referred to as the coverage area of the access point. A mobile device may communicate with an access point when it is within range of the access point.
When a mobile device is within range of two or more access points, an access point with which the mobile device is communicating (e.g., an anchor access point) may decide to offload a number of data flows to a booster anchor point within range of the mobile device. This may be done, for example, to improve the traffic load on the anchor access point, or because the signal quality of a communication link (or communication channel) between the mobile device and the anchor access point is of lower quality than desired. The booster access point may then forward communications from the anchor access point to the mobile device or forward communications from the mobile device to the anchor access point. The anchor access point may control the activation and deactivation of the mobile device's connection with the booster access point. In some cases, an anchor access point may control the activation and deactivation of a mobile device's connections to multiple booster access points.